Diablo IV, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 Forums - Diabloii.Net
My modest goal as a relative newcomer to D2 to beat the entire game on all three difficulties, and I wanted to check on something to make sure my strategy going forward is correct. I've been doing some reading, and it seems the following are true:
-Defense only protects against physical damage. Somehow, I only just now read this detail. I feel pretty stupid, because this makes an enormous difference, for me, since I'm playing a sorc.
-Defense only reduces the chance on will be hit, not the damage done. The only way to decrease the physical damage done by an attack would be to use items with the "Damage Reduced" feature, though increasing the player's vitality would also make the damage relatively less when compared with the total amount of health.
-Defense isn't even in operation for characters who are running.
-Resistances reduce the amount of elemental damage an enemy can hit me with. So, if I have a 50 lightning resist, and I'm hit by a lightning attack that deals 1,000 damage, I'll only take 500 damage.
-Shields only block physical damage.
To me, this would mean that my priorities would be the following:
1. Maxing out all my resistances, since as a sorc I will take ranged attacks more often than melee, and elemental more often than physical.
2. I can foresee max block (which I already have) will be useful to me in certain situations when I unexpectedly am dealt physical damage. (For example, it's nice when suddenly mobbed by a group of Stygian Dolls.)
3. A higher defense would seem to be the last priority on this list, mainly to protect against missile attacks. Aside from these, I should be avoiding any kind of physical damage if possible, so I shouldn't let myself get in situations where I take physical hits very often. Also, if defense doesn't even decrease the amount of damage done, but just the chance that I will sustain a hit, it seems even less important.
My conclusion is that I'd probably be better of in hell running around with minimal defense, and maxed resists, rather than having some really heavy armor and low resists.
Is my thinking here correct?
-Defense only protects against physical damage. Somehow, I only just now read this detail. I feel pretty stupid, because this makes an enormous difference, for me, since I'm playing a sorc.
-Defense only reduces the chance on will be hit, not the damage done. The only way to decrease the physical damage done by an attack would be to use items with the "Damage Reduced" feature, though increasing the player's vitality would also make the damage relatively less when compared with the total amount of health.
-Defense isn't even in operation for characters who are running.
-Resistances reduce the amount of elemental damage an enemy can hit me with. So, if I have a 50 lightning resist, and I'm hit by a lightning attack that deals 1,000 damage, I'll only take 500 damage.
-Shields only block physical damage.
To me, this would mean that my priorities would be the following:
1. Maxing out all my resistances, since as a sorc I will take ranged attacks more often than melee, and elemental more often than physical.
2. I can foresee max block (which I already have) will be useful to me in certain situations when I unexpectedly am dealt physical damage. (For example, it's nice when suddenly mobbed by a group of Stygian Dolls.)
3. A higher defense would seem to be the last priority on this list, mainly to protect against missile attacks. Aside from these, I should be avoiding any kind of physical damage if possible, so I shouldn't let myself get in situations where I take physical hits very often. Also, if defense doesn't even decrease the amount of damage done, but just the chance that I will sustain a hit, it seems even less important.
My conclusion is that I'd probably be better of in hell running around with minimal defense, and maxed resists, rather than having some really heavy armor and low resists.
Is my thinking here correct?